"What's Your Story?" Bonnie MinskyShow Video Details ↓ [music] … … … … … … … …Dr. Liselotte Schuster: [music] Chocolate, my favorite. Hello and welcome to what's your story and I'm your host Dr. Liselotte Schuster. Here at Northbrook, standing in the office of licensed nutrition counselor Bonnie Minsky. Her practice is called nutritional concepts and she has some excellent tips for us so please join me as we find out more. So do you have a list of what you feel are some of the most important vitamins and minerals that people should be taking? Bonnie Minksy: Yes, definitely. Magnesium is probably the most critical and all of my friends laugh at me because all I talk about is magnesium, magnesium, magnesium. It's a catalyst for over 300 functions and deficient in 75% of the US population. It's critical for heart health, blood sugar regulation, nature's valium, energy, especially important for athletes for energy. And without it, no one can function at the top of their game. Vitamin D3. Right now, in the last 6 months, most doctors are beginning to test Vitamin D levels because we're finding major deficiencies and years ago they gave people cod liver oil to prevent rickets which was a natural form of Vitamin D. Now we're seeing children with rickets constantly due to very, very low levels of Vitamin D. Vitamin D helps hormone balance, there are some studies showing cancer prevention. Critically important for bone health and the immune system. And for children my best source recommendation is sun exposure when we have nice weather and there is good sun and cod liver oil. For adults, if it's extremely low, we recommend a supplement of D3. Make sure it's D3, D2 is not as well absorbed. Then we have the B complex nutrients. Those are nutrients most people know about but most people don't realize that if they take B6 as a stress vitamin and also is a natural way of removing fluid from the body, if you have excess fluid. They don't realize that without magnesium, it's extremely poorly absorbed. So it is critical to take magnesium if you're going to take B6. B12, folic acid, we're quite aware of the benefits of that. B12 aids digestion, has a lot to do with healthy DNA. Folic acid is critical for pregnant women and there are definitely studies showing it's a preventive for dementia as well. So those are the 3 that I would say are the most critical nutrients for everyone and calcium is so over prescribed and the dosages are so ridiculously high. One of my mentors, Dr. Mildred Seelig, she was the foremost authority in the world regarding magnesium and she said Finland had serious heart problems from calcification in the arteries, major kidney problems from a 4 to 1 ratio of calcium to magnesium. In the United States, it's a 6 to 1 ratio. But calcium is extremely important only in levels of 600 milligrams as a supplement. If you take a little bit more, excuse me, in foods it's fine. But never take more than 600 in a supplement because you will start seeing calcification. Dr. Liselotte Schuster: So from all of your years of experience, what are some of the dietary things that you would recommend people do? Bonnie Minksy: We have schools preaching the food pyramid. We have hospitals with big pictures of the food pyramid. We have doctors recommending the food pyramid, dietitians recommending the food pyramid. I will tell you that the food pyramid is a joke. When you look at the world population and you look at what the healthiest diets in the world are, such as in Japan and in the Mediterranean, particularly in Crete and other areas of Italy where milk is not a staple in the diet, 66 percent of the US population is lactose intolerant. We also see that milk is the number one food allergy. We see that wheat is the number two food allergy and the highest gluten food. One out of a hundred and thirty-three people in the United States are Celiac which is a hundred percent gluten intolerance and so even about one in fifty have some gluten intolerance. So we're pushing wheat, which also in large amounts blocks the absorption of minerals, when we could be pushing [inaudible] we could be pushing even barley, rye, brown rice, [inaudible]. We recommend the circle of health and some people have even called it the circle of life because you look at three important macro nutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Dr. Liselotte Schuster: So along with the circle of health, are there other things food wise, dietary wise, that you recommend for people to do? Bonnie Minksy: I started seeing client after client coming in with problems that even eating a healthy diet did not correct. And so I began looking into food sensitivity, food intolerance and food allergy. Looking at not just true food allergy but yeast imbalance as an intolerant, looking at the gluten intolerance issue and other food sensitivities which we now have a wonderful blood test that can test for over two hundred foods and food chemicals. Because when you put someone on a healthy diet and give them the nutrients they need, and they're still not well, we do have to look at food intolerance which is very common. Food allergy is not that common but in this country it is very possible that as much as thirty percent of the population has some type of food intolerance. Dr. Liselotte Schuster: Well you have given us a lot of things to think about, some of the most important nutrients, some things dietary wise. I appreciate all of your great advice. Bonnie is living her dream. [laughter] She had a dream quite a few years ago from something that happened with her daughter that spurred her to have a passion and remember each one of us has a passion inside of us. So always go for your dreams and until next time I'm your host Dr. Liselotte Schuster for what's your story. [music] [music] … … … … … … … … … … … |